2. SOME KEYWORDS TOWARD DECOLONIAL METHODS: STUDYING SETTLER COLONIAL HISTORIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL VIOLENCE FROM TKARONTO

This article provides keywords and reflections for decolonial methods, drawing on insights from the Indigenous-led Land and the Refinery project, which concerns the history of Canada's Chemical Valley. This project is crucially organized as Indigenous people co-researching the Imperial Oil Refinery, not as academics studying Aamjiwnaang, and asks how Indigenous and decolonial methods might reorient the use of archives toward other futures. Together, the keywords begin to outline a particular place-based theory of change within decolonial historical practice.     

Skiing Less Often in a Warmer World: Attitudes of Tourists to Climate Change in an Australian Ski Resort

Climate change will affect tourism destinations that are dependent on natural resources, such as snow. Currently there is limited research into attitudes, intentions and actual visitation patterns of skiers in response to reduced snow cover. Therefore the awareness of, and attitudes towards, climate change of 351 ski tourists were assessed in the largest ski resort in Australia in 2007, repeating a survey conducted in 1996. Ninety percent of skiers in 2007 would ski less often in Australian resorts if the next five years had low natural snow, up from 75% of skiers surveyed in 1996: 69% would ski less often, 5% would give up and 16% would ski at the same levels but overseas. Nearly all skiers thought that climate change would affect the ski industry (87% compared with 78% in 1996), and that this would occur sooner than in the 1996 survey. Visitation in a poor snow year (2006, +0.85°C average annual temperature, 54% less natural snow) was −13.6% of the long-term average, indicating poor natural snow resulted in decreased visitation, despite extensive use of snow making. The implications of changes in climate conditions and tourist attitudes for Australian ski resorts are assessed including for snow making and summer tourism.     

STONE AXES OF NORTH LEINSTER

Summary. The importance of stone axes as an aspect of the archaeological record for the prehistory of north Leinster, Ireland is assessed using a number of approaches. The number, date of discovery and details of the location and context of axes in the region are discussed. Attention is drawn to the extensive distribution of stone axes and its implications. Some preliminary comments are made on the morphology of known complete examples and the petrology of the axes is discussed in some detail. Throughout the paper consideration is given to the post-depositional factors which influence our knowledge of the axes. In the concluding discussion the formative processes behind the contextual and distributional patterns seen in the evidence are considered.     

Square Ringforts? A Contribution to the Identification of ‘Ringfort’ Types

ONGOING DISCUSSIONS of the monuments commonly referred to as ‘ringforts’ in Ireland include the definition and investigation of specific types of these enclosures. Rectilinear, or subsquare, enclosures comprise one such type, with examples identifiable in the well-preserved archaeological landscape of the Burren (Co Clare) in western Ireland. It is also possible to extend such identification into the counties of the western seaboard, from Co Cork in the south to Co Donegal in the north. Questions of chronology, function, status, and cultural identity are addressed. Although a measure of variation may exist within the category of rectilinear enclosures, there is some uniformity of morphology and chronology and, perhaps, function.     

The Function and Iconography of the Minstrels’ Gallery at Exeter Cathedral

The Minstrels’ Gallery of Exeter cathedral has received attention in almost every major account of the church’s fabric, but has never been taken as a subject in its own right. This paper seeks to review and assess existing interpretations of the gallery’s construction and purpose, along with those of the nave’s north entrance with which the gallery’s history is inextricably linked. In addition to evaluating existing scholarship, this paper will also propose three further theses: first, that the gallery was inserted into a finished nave bay, probably in the 1350s or 1360s, which already contained a north porch built entirely by the mason Thomas of Witney on the foundations of its Romanesque predecessor; secondly, that its function was to offer an inexpensive alternative to the singing-gallery which was planned but not built in the image-screen on the cathedral’s west front; and, thirdly, that the role of the gallery and the north entrance to the nave in the Palm Sunday liturgy has influenced the iconography of the nave and gallery. This paper seeks to gather together the wealth of interest which the gallery has attracted over the last two centuries and to contribute to this exceptional history of scholarship.